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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26789989">On Mad Scholars and Dirty Poets</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/emomi/pseuds/emomi'>emomi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>"click here to suffer" -my friend, F/M, an attempt at lyricism, but how do you summarize whatever this is?, hope that means i did a good job!, if that's a thing anyone still cares about, is it poetic is it pretentious is there a difference, the summary is so hilariously bad, trespasser spoilers kinda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:48:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,620</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26789989</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/emomi/pseuds/emomi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>René Boucher of the White Spire once posited that the Veil which separates our world from the world of dreams was not a natural phenomenon, but the creation of a single powerful mage some many thousands of years ago. The Black City, he claimed, was that long dead mage’s final message. A beacon of doom. “Come no closer,” it warns. “Great danger lurks within.” Boucher devoted the whole of his life to proving this hypothesis—or at least he tried to, until the Divine personally demanded he undergo the Rite of Tranquility in 7:63 Storm.</p><p>It was quite the scandal.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Lavellan/Solas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>On Mad Scholars and Dirty Poets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>been thinking bout lighthouses</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Of all the many unique and mysterious features of the geography of the Fade, the Black City has garnered the most scholarly attention. Wherever one stands in the Fade, the City remains ever in one’s sightline; and however far one walks in any particular direction, it remains as distant as it ever was. History claims the Black City was gold once.</p><p>Ancient blighted magisters claim it never was.</p><p>One René Boucher of the White Spire posited that the Veil which separates our world from the world of dreams was not a natural phenomenon, but the creation of a single powerful mage some many thousands of years ago. The Black City, he claimed, was that long dead mage’s final message. A beacon of doom. “Come no closer,” it warns. “Great danger lurks within.” Boucher devoted the whole of his life to proving this hypothesis—or at least he tried to, until the Divine personally demanded he undergo the Rite of Tranquility in 7:63 Storm.</p><p>It was quite the scandal.</p><p>Most modern scholars dismiss Boucher’s work as “baseless speculation.” Brother Genitivi, in an uncharacteristically heated account of the mage’s life, called his theories “provocative” and “perhaps a touch ill-conceived.”</p><p>The Black City is not the only beacon in the vast landscape of the Beyond. War, desperation, and magic all serve as far more welcoming, if not so prominent, ports of call for those strange spirits who call the dreaming their home.</p><p>In recent years, the brightest of these beacons was embedded in the hand of an elven woman known to most of the waking world as the Inquisitor.</p><p>Prior to her sudden, unexpected beacon-ness, the woman we call the Herald of Andraste (though she often wishes we wouldn’t) had very little experience with spirits and demons. As a mage, she had—of course—encountered them on occasion while dreaming, but as the First of Clan Lavellan, her magical expertise lay entirely in the practical. Healing broken noses, raising land ships, cushioning the falls of rowdy children who tumbled out of trees they were definitely <em> not </em>supposed to be climbing. So she was not exactly prepared to weather the onslaught of spirits drawn to the magical mark of unknown origin that just so happened to call a (very important) part of her body its home. She did her best though, and she did have help.</p><p>And if that help just happened to be very occasionally quite <em> un</em>helpful, well… that wasn’t <em>too </em> terrible.</p><p>Eventually, Inquisitor Lavellan learned to enjoy the company of spirits. They were fascinating, and mostly benign. One, a spirit of hope, took the form of a beautiful little bird—a bright blue kingfisher. Every night it would land on her hand, prod gently at the anchor, flit to her shoulder and poke at her hair or her vallaslin, and return to her hand to prod a little more, all the while whistling the melodies of old Elvish lullabies. It was her favorite of all her new spirit friends. </p><p>(Excepting, of course, any spirits of compassion who may or may not be reading this.)</p><p>Not all spirits drawn to her were kind though. There was a pale yellow cat who did nothing but scratch and bite at her ankles. When her little bird was with her, the vicious tabby would hiss and swipe at it until it fled in fear. She called this spirit Disappointment, and in the darkest days of the Inquisition it was her most frequent companion.</p><p>It wasn’t just natives of the Fade who felt the pull of the anchor. Mages would sometimes report feeling drawn to a faded green presence in hazy, half-remembered dreams that only occurred when the Inquisitor was sleeping nearby. The foremost expert on the Fade in the Inquisition (and perhaps the whole world, if his stories were to be believed) once told her that the heliographic nature of the anchor made it possible for him to find her in the dreaming, regardless of where she lay her head in the waking world.</p><p>To that, Andraste’s Holy Ambassador might have responded with a sly half-smile and an invitation for him (<em>and</em>, she might have added, <em> his Fade tongue</em>) to join her there whensoever he felt the impulse.</p><p>If she had said those things—and if the Fade expert had slyly smiled back and told her he’d take her suggestion into consideration—then she just might join the mad scholar René Boucher in scandal.</p><p>Or she would have, if the Fade expert hadn’t disappeared without a word.</p><p>She was still a beacon, she thought, the flame which draws the moth. And he would find her, sooner or later, wouldn’t he?</p><p>So, in the wake of her greatest victory, the Savior of Thedas, the glorious Second Coming of the Maker’s Own Bride, bid goodnight to her closest friends and advisers, descended into dreams, and waited. And waited.</p><p>And waited.</p><p>It did not occur to her to look for him, as it did not occur to the flame to search for its moth. It did not occur to She Who Shines Brightest that some things are easier to see in the dark.</p><p>Starlight, for instance.</p><p>The poet Ser Gaston Perrier wrote that true love is a single gossamer thread, made of hope and starlight, that ties two hearts together so that when one beat, the other would feel its pull. The hearts’ tug of war would only abate when the two lovers pressed chest to chest, lips to lips, throbbing member to— well…</p><p>Critics dismiss Perrier’s poetry as “derivative swill.” Sayeth the Randy Dowager: “One wonders if Ser Perrier is not perhaps trying to compensate for his own less-than-throbbing appendages. No scarves fluttered in shock out of five.” </p><p>***</p><p>When Former Inquisitor Lavellan, She Who No Longer Walks With She Who Walks With the Maker, lost her beacon, it was, more than anything, a relief. In the years since (according to the masses) Andraste Herself descended from the heavens to lovingly place the mark on Her Chosen Herald’s (thankfully not dominant) Hand, the anchor had degraded from something beautiful and enigmatic to something dark and festering. Literally. In those final months, it had begun to smell strongly of rot.</p><p>Her Fade expert—in retrospect, a rather ironic title—said it was killing her and he stole it with a kiss. Like a prince in one of those disturbing children’s tales from the Anderfels where wicked step-sisters cut off their own toes so they can stuff their feet into tiny glass slippers.</p><p>Her prince. He’d found her at last. And then, impossibly, he’d turned and left her again.</p><p>(<em>Our love will endure</em>, she’d told him. But how, how, <em> how?</em>)</p><p>It was the end of the waiting at least. </p><p>She still did not know where he was, but she finally knew <em>who </em> he was. <em>That </em>particular revelation changed everything. Well, everything except for one thing. The important thing.</p><p>Disappointment continued to stalk her dreams, even as the rest of her normal retinue of curious spirits saw fit to chase after some other brighter beacon. No longer content to scratch at her boots the demon house cat had grown into a monstrous cougar. Most nights it would chase her—through forest and desert, marsh and tundra—until she stumbled on a rock or branch. It would pounce then, and sink its sharp fangs into the soft flesh of her throat.</p><p>Sometimes, when Disappointment was mauling her, she thought she could hear a wolf’s howl, coaxing her gently out of her dreams.</p><p>Some nights—some rare and marvelous nights—she would find not Disappointment but her little blue kingfisher waiting for her. On those nights, it would fly to her outstretched hand (the only one she still had) with a delighted trill and sing it’s lullabies until the rosy, delicate fingers of dawn pulled her, smiling, into the waking.</p><p>It was singing Where Willows Wail when she finally noticed that single gossamer thread tied to her heart.</p><p>It shimmered, barely visible and made her think, strangely, of stolen kisses in dusty alcoves. It pulled taught, slackened, pulled taught again. If she hadn’t been staring at it she never would have noticed the way it drew her towards that far distant <em>something </em>at its other end. Could it be…?</p><p>It tugged again and she felt… She felt the agonizing joy of finding the one page in a forgotten tome in the ruins of a forgotten library which proves your every hypothesis false. The glorious grief of winning a war by losing every battle. The bitter elation of finding out that the one thing that could destroy you and everything you’ve worked for <em> loves you still</em>. And it wasn’t her feeling. But, oh the shape of it. </p><p>It was more familiar to her than that of her own heart.</p><p>(Which, for the record, was that one important thing which hadn’t changed.)</p><p>Was it coincidence that that delicate strand of spider's silk seemed to lead her towards the Black City? What would Boucher say?</p><p><em> Come no closer. Great danger lurks within</em>.</p><p>How right he was. How <em>wrong</em> he was.</p><p>The kingfisher stopped its singing. Or maybe it sang a new song but the Maker’s Chosen’s Chosen, Blessed Hero Sent To Save Us All, could no longer hear it over the rushing in her ears. Or maybe Hope, that mischievous songbird, flew to her ear and whispered—so quiet it might have said nothing at all—that she should follow that diaphanous starlight thread, like a moth follows a flame. </p><p>And maybe—<em>maybe</em>—she would do just that, night after wondrous night, thinking all the while of pressing chest to chest, lips to lips, and— well…</p><p>Maybe those dirty poems weren’t too terrible after all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(note to self: tell that to varric, he'd love it)</p><p>((also happy late birthday to Baron Kissedy LaCroix, beloved husband of Ser Gaston Perrier))</p></blockquote></div></div>
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